Liz Truss faces mounting pressure from national newspapers

Liz Truss aides are likely to be trying to shield her from the comment pages of national newspapers on Wednesday morning as she prepares for her speech at the Tory conference. Even from the normally friendly Conservative press, they do not make encouraging reading for the prime minister.

In the Times, Danny Finkelstein, a Tory peer and former adviser to multiple governments, warns the party must brace for a rout worse than 1997. He says that the Conservatives aren't certain to lose the next election but they have reached the point where everyone in politics expects them to. The political editors might prefer lunch with the opposition rather than the government. It is not much better reading for Truss in the Daily Telegraph, where veteran columnist Philip Johnston says that the Tories seem to have thrown in the towel after 12 years, although he puts the blame at the door of MPs rather than the prime minister.

There comes a time when governments run out of steam, and there is a sense in Birmingham that the Conservatives are approaching that moment or are even beyond it. This is ironic given that Liz Truss has staked everything on appearing to be a fresh start, but her MPs won't let her get off the ramps. Sarah Vine told the Daily Mail she has failed to look strong enough and made a mistake by casting out big names such as her ex-husband Michael Gove from the cabinet.

She needs to lasso one or two of those big beasts and hook them to her wagon by hook or by crook.

It won't be easy, and it will doubtless be very painful, not to mention humiliating. If she can appeal to their greater love of the party to which they have devoted their entire careers, and if she can appeal to their sense of loyalty and duty, then maybe she can succeed, even if she doesn't? I fear this only ends one way. Keir Starmer is going to get the keys to No 10 and the Conservative Party in the wilderness for years to come. Truss was endorsed by 82-year-old economist Arthur Laffer in the Mail, known as the father of Reaganomics, who devised the Laffer curve that purports to show governments can increase their tax take by cutting taxes.

When I read of your fiscal plans last month, at my home in Nashville, Tennessee, I cheered them to the rafters, he says.